2015

That India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, decided not to attend the sixtieth anniversary celebrations of the Bandung Conference of Asian and African countries on April 21-24 and instead sent Ms Sushma Swaraj, the Minister for External Affairs, is indicative of the evolving approach of the new regime in India that came to power a year ago in May 2014. Questions are being raised in India today if the Modi Government has opted for a foreign policy line that distances itself from the (…)

Statement on Indo-Pak Relations
We are profoundly disturbed by the thought-less articulation of jingoist sentiments by high level representatives of the Government, prominent spokespersons of the ruling party and strategic thinkers and experts associated with the think-tanks close to policy-makers, following the Indian Army’s seemingly successful operation against the militants in the North-East along the Indo-Myanmar border. We are deeply concerned about its dangerous implications for (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Reaching out to our Neighbour
Indo-Pak relations have again come under a cloud. The tension over Kashmir and the recent border skirmishes have touched off speculations about an imminent military confrontation. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao has of course under-lined his government’s eagerness to strengthen mutual understanding between the two countries, while reiterating its resolve not to relax vigilance in safeguarding the country’s security.
To buttress the case (…)

by John S. Moolakkattu and Jos Chathukulam
Introduction
Decentralisation has a long history. Political thinkers from Montesquieu to Madison suggest that decentralised governance can contribute to democratic participation, better representation, accountability and policy and governmental effectiveness. It is also seen as a means to moderate potential conflict from people who are ethnically and culturally different from the majority groups. Several philosophic traditions have enunciated (…)

The following is a statement issued on June 16 by the Indian and Pakistani Chapters of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy.
We, the peace loving people of Pakistan and India, are strongly condemning the recent war of words between the leaders of both countries and are deeply concerned about the diminishing sanity of the leaders who are passing on intimidating remarks time and again which will risk the lives of many innocent people and risk the possibility of a (…)

Following certain tragic incidents at the Manesar (Haryana) plant of Maruti Suzuki on July 18, 2012—which led to the death of a human resources manager—as many as 147 workers of this plant were arrested in a highly arbitrary way, in most cases with hardly any evidence of their involvement in the tragic incident.
Since then several reports have drawn attention to the extreme anti-worker bias of the Haryana Government, then ruled by the Congress, in the cruel victimisation of workers. (…)

MUSINGS
If Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers helping fugitives is not corruption then what is it? Nah, in this day and age there is nothing called humanitarian help! External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj helping out tainted Lalit Modi because of ‘family ties’ drags along the vital fact that he is a client of Swaraj’s lawyer daughter, Bansuri. Wouldn’t you call this a nexus of a definite kind? And before layers to this nexus could be peeled off, there comes another name with another (…)

EDITORIAL
Last week it was written in these columns that the “clinically executed ambush in Manipur’s Chandel district” on June 4, that killed 20 of our soldiers and injured over a dozen of them, was the “deadliest terror attack on Army personnel in the last 33 years in the region”. Within five days the swift retaliation came from the Indian security forces: early on June 9 special forces (para commandos) of the Indian Army carried out surgical operations deep inside Myanmar inflicting (…)

The management of the Somnath Temple has issued an order that non-Hindus will have to take its permission to enter the temple premises. The order may be legal under Article 26 of the Constitution, but is ludicrous on the face of it. The fact that the present holder of the office of the Prime Minister is a Trustee of the temple makes it ominous, The reasons given for issuing the order are self-defeating. One reason is that the sanctity of the temple will be polluted, and the other is that the (…)

For decades, diplomats in South-East Asia approached New Delhi for forging closer relations with India and were in turn ignored by the latter. Their governments were in turn left wondering why India, the only conceivable counter-weight to China in Asia, was so unwilling to play its due role. That India has since woken up to the reality in South-Eastern Asia is another matter altogether.
By comparison, Bangladeshis must have been a far more bemused people when considering how they had been (…)